29 October: National Cat Day

Today is National Cat Day. Here are 10 little known facts about our feline friends:

1. Some cat related words you may not know: The technical term for a cat’s hairball is a “bezoar.” A group of cats is called a “clowder.” A cat lover is called an Ailurophile. A female cat is called a queen or a molly. While on the subject of cat words, researchers believe the word “tabby” comes from Attabiyah, a place in Baghdad, Iraq. Tabbies got their name because their striped coats resembled the famous wavy patterns in the silk produced in this city.
2. Given how popular cats are now (500 million domestic cats in the world), in the middle ages they were actually thought to be evil. During the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Pope Innocent VIII condemned cats as evil and thousands of cats were burned; and people would "celebrate" holy days by burning cats or throwing them off church towers. There was some poetic justice to this. The mass murder of so many cats led to an explosion in the rat population and Rats spread the plague.
3. Christians in medieval Europe may have hated cats but elsewhere they were more popular. Mohammed is said to have loved cats and had a favourite cat, Muezza, a tabby. Legend says that tabby cats have an “M” for Mohammed on top of their heads because Mohammad would often rest his hand on the cat’s head. We all know the ancient Egyptians virtually worshipped their cats and would have their pets mummified when they died. You might not know that they would mourn the passing of a pet cat by shaving off their Eyebrows and would hold elaborate funerals at which much Wine would be consumed. Just as humans would be buried with a supply of food for the afterlife, the cat would be buried with the tiny mummies of Mice. The Egyptians were so protective of their cats that smuggling a cat out of the country carried the death penalty.
4. The cat flap was invented by Isaac Newton. He had an intelligent cat called Spithead, who learned to open doors, and would frequently wreck any of Newton's experiments which required total darkness. Newton came up with the idea of a cat flap to solve this problem.
5. Cats make excellent spies. The Dutch embassy in Moscow had two Siamese cats. They noticed that the cats kept meowing and clawing at the walls in certain places. Thinking they must have an infestation of mice, officials investigated, and found hidden microphones. The cats could hear the noise they made when switched on. In the 1960s, the CIA tried to turn a cat into a spy by implanting a microphone into her ear and a radio transmitter at the base of her skull. She survived the surgery but got hit by a taxi on her first mission.
6. The first cat in space was a French cat called Felicette (a.k.a. “Astrocat”) In 1963, France blasted the cat into outer space. Electrodes implanted in her brain sent neurological signals back to Earth. She survived the trip.
7. We don't know for sure why cats purr (they do it when nervous as well as when contented) but the frequency of a domestic cat’s purr is the same at which muscles and bones repair themselves, so it may have a healing function.
8. A cat can run at approximately 31 mph (49 km) over a short distance (Usain Bolt can only manage 27mph). A cat can jump up to five times its own height in a single bound. It can't, however, climb down a tree head first. Because all its claws face the same way, it has to climb down backwards.
9. A cat’s nose pad is ridged with a unique pattern, just like the fingerprint of a human.
10. In the 1930s, two Russian biologists discovered that Siamese kittens have albino genes that work only when the body temperature is above 98° F. If Siamese kittens are kept in a very warm room, they won't develop the characteristic dark "points" on their legs and faces; they will stay white all over.

My Books

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle

Jigsaw

The first ten short stories from my writing blog. Within these covers you will find murder, mayhem, ghosts, romance, dungeons and dragons and alien vampire bunnies.

You can, of course, read all these stories and more on the blog for free by following the link above, and you're welcome to do that, but if you find you'd like to read them over and over without looking at a screen, or you know your friend who hates technology would absolutely love them, the book is available.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon 

E-book Amazon Kindle